Chapter 330: The Same Way

"The same way," she said, "I am prepared to tolerate you because I have no other choice."

"I just gave you one."

"I refuse it," Livia said.

"This is not the time to be stubborn," Henry said. "Livia. You deserve a beautiful life."

"I already have it." She stepped closer, her eyes bright and furious and tender all at once. "Everything else is just background noise." She stepped nearer still, until only a careful space remained between them. "Please...Please let me stay, Your Majesty."

"And the other thing," he said quietly. "My..."

"You being mad?" she asked. "Who is not mad? I am mad right now for not getting on that boat. Any sensible woman would be halfway down the Thames by now, counting your gold and deciding which country has the least interest in English scandals. A life without you in it, I cannot bear it. As long as we are together, let us make something beautiful."

She reached for the only words that felt older than their fear. "Let me not to the marriage of true minds... Admit impediments. Love is not love... Which alters when it alteration finds,...Or bends with the remover to remove."

Henry looked at her as though she had reached inside his chest and laid a hand on the broken place. "That’s unfair."

"Then surrender."

Henry lifted her chin with one finger. "I truly did hope you would leave,"

"Then you are truly mad," she replied.

He stepped closer until her skirts brushed his legs. "It is going to be forever, Livia."

"I know."

"All of my darkness will be yours forever."

Livia lifted both hands and placed them on his face. "Is that not what vows are about?" she asked. She stroked his face with her thumbs. "For better, for worse. In sickness and in health. In wealth, in poverty, in peace."

he bent his head and kissed her gently. So gently that Livia thought herself a delicate egg. Livia rose into it, her hands still on his face, her heart aching so badly it felt newly made. She did not forgive everything. Perhaps forgiveness would not be a single door opened once and done with. Perhaps it would be a corridor they would walk through again and again, sometimes stumbling, sometimes hand in hand.

But she was here. He was here. That was where they would begin. When Henry pulled away, he looked down at her with something close to awe.

"I do have a favour I need you to grant me."

"Anything."

"You say you do not have the letter. Do you have any idea who may have it?"

He turned away from her. He walked a few paces towards the hearth. "I do not know..." He rubbed a hand over his mouth. "I was distressed that night. That is too mild a word, perhaps. I was frantic."

"The night your father died?"

"Yes. I was going to my father," he said. "I was going to tell him I did not want the throne. I was going to tell him that he and my mother could beget another son if God allowed it, or that he could acknowledge some bastard and let the council fight over it. I did not care. I wanted no part of it. I wanted no crown bought by death."

"Stephen was close behind me. We entered, and everything was already wrong. He was clutching his chest. His face..." Henry stopped. "He was trying to breathe. His valet was here, everything was chaos."

"His valet does not have it," Livia said. "The valet told Richard that the letter disappeared when you came into the chamber."

"So Richard wants to use this to take me down?"

Livia sighed. She could not answer quickly. In truth, she could not answer at all without making the wound worse. She had heard enough from Richard to know he was no longer simply grieving. He was hunting. He had taken an old horror, wrapped it in justice, and placed it against Henry’s throat. And perhaps he believed he was doing the right thing. That was often the danger with men. When they believed themselves righteous, they became remarkably difficult to stop.

Her silence answered for her.

"Of course. It makes sense. Richard would not settle for hating me privately. That would be far too restrained for the Duke of Kingsmere."

Livia drew a breath. "Why did you tell him, Henry?"

"Because he was my friend," Henry said. "I had just lost Thomas...My son was dead. I thought God was punishing me. All I could think was that God had finally reached into my house and taken from me what mattered most so I could feel the pain a parent feels. I needed someone to talk to,"

"Richard had always been there for me," Henry said. "When we were boys. When my brothers died. When my father died." He looked down. "He told me never to breathe a word of it to another human being."

Livia clasped her hands before her. "What I am about to say will sound like I am defending Richard. But I need you to know that is not what is happening here...I am not defending what he is doing. I just need you to get ahead of this before it gets ahead of you. And also to save Richard’s life."

Livia held his gaze. "He was your friend after all."

"What are you thinking?" Henry asked.

Livia stepped closer. "Find that letter."

His brows drew together. "If it still exists."

"Find it, however you can. Find the letter and bring your mother to justice yourself." Livia continued before he could interrupt. "You must do it. You must be the one to expose her. Keep your hands clean, and let the people see that their king is true and just."

Henry stared at her as if she had asked him to walk willingly into fire.

"All the people have needed all these years is confirmation that their king carried no blood on his hands."